Antithesis (антитеза, противопоставление)
Antithesis is a good example of a lexico-syntactical stylistic device: syntactically, antithesis is just another case of parallel constructions. But unlike parallelism, which is indifferent to the semantics of its components, the two parts of an antithesis must be semantically opposite to each other, as in the sad maxim of O. Wilde: "Some people have much to live on, and little to live for", where "much" and "little" present a pair of antonyms, supported by the contextual opposition of postpositions "on" and "for". Another example: "If we don't know who gains by his death we do know who loses by it." (Ch.) Here, too, we have the leading antonymous pair "gain—lose" and the supporting one, made stronger by the emphatic form of the affirmative construction—"don't know / do know".
Antithesis as a semantic opposition emphasized by its realization in similar structures, is often observed on lower levels of language hierarchy, especially on the morphemic level where two antonymous affixes create a powerful effect of contrast: "Their pre-money wives did not go together with their post-money daughters." (H.)
The main function of antithesis is to stress the heterogeneity of the described phenomenon, to show that the latter is a dialectical unity of two (or more) opposing features.
Exercise I. Discuss the semantic centers and structural peculiarities of antithesis:
1. Mrs. Nork had a large home and a small husband. (S.L.)
2. In marriage the upkeep of woman is often the downfall of man. (Ev.)
3. Don't use big words. They mean so little. (O.W.)
4. I like big parties. They're so intimate. At small parties there isn't any privacy. (Sc.F.)
5. There is Mr. Guppy, who was at first as open as the sun at noon, but who suddenly shut up as close as midnight. (D.)
6. Such a scene as there was when Kit came in! Such a confusion of tongues, before the circumstances were related and the proofs disclosed! Such a dead silence when all was told! (D.)
7. Rup wished he could be swift, accurate, compassionate and stern instead of clumsy and vague and sentimental. (I.M.)
8. His coat-sleeves being a great deal too long, and his trousers a great deal too short, he appeared ill at ease in his clothes. (D.)
9. There was something eerie about the apartment house, an unearthly quiet that was a combination of overcarpeting and underoccupancy. (H.St.)
10. It is safer to be married to the man you can be happy with than to the man you cannot be happy without. (E.)
11. Then came running down stairs a gentleman with whiskers, out of breath. (D.)
12. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. (D.)
13.Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream. Cannery Row is the gathered and scattered, tin and iron, and rust and splintered wood, chipped pavement and weedy lots and junk heaps, sardine canneries of corrugated iron, honky tonks, restaurants and whore houses and little crowded groceries and laboratories and flophouses. Its inhabitants are, as the man once said "Whores, pimps, gamblers and sons of bitches", by which he meant Everybody. Had the man looked through another peephole he might have said "Saints and angels and martyrs and holy men" and he would have meant the same thing. (J.St.)
ASSIGNMENTS FOR SELF-CONTROL
Comment on linguistic properties of sentences which are foregrounded in lexico-syntactical stylistic devices.
What do you know about antithesis? Why is it viewed separately from parallel constructions?
Have you ever met, in your home-reading, cases of antithesis in which the structure of a word was also used in the creation of the SD?